Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Last night Dancing with the Stars came to an end with Jennifer Grey as the winner. As it should have been, she was the best dancer throughout the competition. It is after all a dance competition or is supposed to be anyway. The left seems to be happy that Bristol did not win and feel like they have dealt some sort of bizarre blow to the "teabaggers". The right is either saying it was rigged so Bristol couldn't win or that conservatives have much better things to do than deal with a petty dance show. So needless to say, I am glad this little saga has now come to an end, as it was blown totally out of proportion.

So I am doing my mid day look around the web and I come across this article on how Brandi did not make the finals because she is black. This is just another glaring example of the reality that blacks face in this country. Now, I will be the first to say that Brandi was the better dancer over Bristol. I also will admit that many Palin fans went all out to keep Bristol in the competition longer than she probably should have been when you compare her dance abilities to the other competitors. But why did this article have to go "there"? Especially since the person who came in second, Kyle, was a young black male who I think many people found very charming; myself included. The article then goes on to discuss unemployment numbers between blacks and whites, and how "black" sounding names get 50% fewer callbacks than non black sounding names.

These numbers are almost always skewed for a variety of reasons. One of which is the different levels of education. This article specifically talks about college educated males. According to these statistics the black man has 8.4% compared to their white counterparts of 4.4%. I don't know where these numbers come from, so I can't say for sure if they are right or wrong. My question is are these numbers comparing apples to apples? If the blacks are living in more hard hit urban areas and the whites are living in more suburban areas, the numbers will be different. If you look at the unemployment numbers broken down by state, you will find that the numbers are much higher in some areas of the country than others. In order to get a really accurate number for this wouldn't one need to look at only one geographic area?

There is no secret that unemployment is higher among some minorities than whites. But, that is true even when the economy is booming. So, the rationale for it can't be simply racism. If someone is so racist that they won't hire blacks or Hispanics, why do these same people hire Asians or Indians? The unemployment levels of other minority groups don't reach the same percentages of blacks and Hispanics. Much of the difference in unemployment rates has to do with white collar vs. blue collar jobs. Blue collar workers always suffer higher levels of unemployment during a recession. When money is tight you are not going to hire people to do things around the house when the projects can be put off or done on your own. That is simple math, people horde their money when they are unsure if they are going to have job in the near future. Manufacturing jobs have taken a hit in our economy for quite some time, so again many of these workers are minorities. This is an issue of education/training not of racism. I realize that many will say that the lack of education is also a race issue. In some ways I agree with that to the extent that many of the worst public school systems in the country happen to be in more urban poor areas, which happen to be populated by minorities in much larger numbers. I personally believe that we do have to give every child in this country a good education, this is something that liberals and conservatives can agree on; the difference becomes how we get there.

While these issues are not only worthy of discussion, it is necessary that we discuss the differences, what we really need to stop doing is turning everything into a race issue. Brandi didn't get kicked of Dancing with the Stars because she was black, she got kicked off because Bristol got more votes. The reasons for that are not quite as sinister as this article has made them out to be.

3 comments:

I don't watch that show, but I did read the "updates" on various news sites. It always makes me laugh to see what counts as "news" these days.Like you said, it was just another drama fest & more fuel for those who insist on making everything as issue.

You are right, I was charmed by Cory. I wanted Jennifer to win and Don wanted Cory to win. He was beyond cute. The funny thing is this isn't the first time this has happened - where an inferior dancer makes it farther than they should. Kelly Osbourne, Phyllis Diller, Jerry Springfield to name a few. I think the reason Brandi didn't make it is that her and her partner were a little arrogant. Her partner especially. My guess is that all three of the finalist received more votes because of that. Maybe not, who knows

I am also glad this dance drama is over. It just so happens that Bristol got more votes than Brandi. This had nothing to do with race. Personalities play a role in how people vote. I was happy to hear that Jennifer Grey won. She definitely deserved to win.

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